Six Principles of Effective Communication

Accomplishing any task with excellence is always a function of mastering the basics. Many preachers, however, never master six fundamental principles of good communication:

Establish a warm atmosphere. The atmosphere you create with your words and gestures determines the effectiveness of your sermon. Avoid beginning with a negative tone, self-centered anecdotes, or anything which betrays insecurity on your part. These focus the audience's attention on your needs, not theirs. Your nonverbal signals are also important because they communicate your general demeanor. Smiling at people demonstrates openness and invites them to listen.

Actively engage people's interest. Many pastors use techniques to engage congregations that they believe are effective, but actually disconnect them from listeners. Over-dramatization, excessive emotion, and yelling focus listeners upon your performance instead of content. A conversational approach works better.

Be believable. Evaluate everything you say from the pulpit with this question: Is it believable? If you can't believe yourself when you say something, your audience won't believe it either. When your audience doesn't believe you, your credibility--and their motivation to keep listening -- evaporates. Speaking with authority is dependent upon speaking truth. Often, speakers get into trouble when they extrapolate a principle into a situation they don't understand. If you're speaking about how a certain principle would work in a business setting, but know nothing about business, it will show.

Speak with your own voice. Listeners will disengage from a speaker who uses big words to impress his audience or who appears to choose words for the sake of sounding good. If your listener is conscious of your voice, it is a distraction. Choose your words the same way you choose your clothes; appropriate for the context, but not distracting. Your voice should contain fire, conviction, and accurately reflect what's happening in your mind.

The early Church was not an organization merely, not a movement, but a walking incarnation of spiritual energy. The Church began in power, moved in power and moved just as long as she had power. When she no longer had power she dug in for safety and sought to conserve her gains. But her blessing were like the manna: when they tried to keep it overnight it bred worms and stank. So we have had monasticism, scholasticism, institutionalism; and they have all been indicative of one thing: the absence of spiritual power. In Church history every return to New Testament power has marked a new advance somewhere, and every dimunition of power has seen the rise of some new mechanism for conservation and defense. If this analysis is correct, then we are today in a state of very low spiritual energy.